


Tragedy Girls

by woodchucks



Category: How to Get Away with Murder
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Serial Killers, Brutal Murder, Cool motive still murder, Everybody Dies, Gun Kink, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Mild Sexual Content, Psychopathology & Sociopathy, Very Dark Humor, some implied queerbaiting, yikes what have i done
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-02-26 12:20:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18716974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/woodchucks/pseuds/woodchucks
Summary: It's a simple plan: a bunch of people around them will die, and everyone will feel so, so sorry for the poor, tragic girls of the Middleton Massacre (Michaela has had the name picked out since she chose Middleton Law), and it's so easy to translate pity into opportunity. When she'd first thought of it, the plan had really only been for one, but then she meets Laurel and, well, aren't some things better with friends?





	Tragedy Girls

**Author's Note:**

> please read tags & warnings!
> 
> i was on a lauraela fic reading kick, and then i got drunk and watched tragedy girls, and then this happened. hilarious movie, still very violent and dark.

“You so fucked up.”

“Oh, right, be mad at _me_.”

“You had one job, Michaela!”

“Yeah, the hardest one, _Laurel_.”

“I can’t even talk to you right now.”

“It wasn’t _my_ fault.”

“Then who the hell’s fault was it?”

“I don’t know!” Michaela huffs. “Wes’s for being so pussy whipped. Sam’s for having such a hard goddamn head. Besides, _I’m_ the one who wasted all that time crawling around on the ground looking for the stupid ring. If I hadn’t completely _ruined_ my manicure, Sam would be in a freaking incinerator right now. And then what? All our hard work for nothing!”

Laurel opens her mouth to say something else, one finger raised, but Michaela plows on.

“And do you _know_ how puffy my eyes are gonna be tomorrow from all that crying? At least you got to keep it together. I looked like a complete fucking spaz.”

“You _are_ a complete spaz,” Laurel deadpans.

“And you’re a total bitch.”

They stare at one another stubbornly, legs planted firmly, arms crossed, neither one intending to back down. A beat passes.

Michaela speaks first. “Did you see how his head looked when Connor kicked it off?” She sticks her tongue out, head cocked to one side, eyes crossed.

Laurel can’t hold back a snort of laughter. Michaela cracks a devilish smile, grabbing Laurel’s arm and pulling her into a heap on the couch, their legs tangled. They’re still covered in dirt and blood, and the grimy mixture seeps into the fabric of the sofa but neither notices.

“Your crying was amazing, by the way,” Laurel says, argument forgotten. “I totally thought you would need to be, like, sedated. You’re getting the Oscar.”

Michaela fakes a bow which, from her position on the couch, Laurel’s legs draped across her own, only involves bending her neck and flourishing her hand. “Thank you, thank you. I’m so honored to be recognized for my work as ‘Traumatized Murder Accomplice #2’.”

“Before I forget.” Laurel raises a hip, digging into the pocket of her jeans. After a moment, her hand lifts, the diamond of Michaela’s ring glinting in the light of the living room lamp.

Michaela snatches it, slipping it onto her finger. “Hmm. I’m gonna miss looking at this.” She slides it back off, tossing it onto the coffee table. It misses and bounces onto the floor, under the couch. She chews her lower lip for a moment, then glances at her companion. “Are you really mad at me?”

Laurel softens, slinging an arm around Michaela’s shoulder and pulling her close, craning her neck to allow Michaela to rest her head on her shoulder. “No. I mean, like you said, it’s not _really_ your fault. We both thought the fall would break his neck for sure. Now we know better.”

Michaela turns her head, burying her face in Laurel’s neck, and quietly sighs, “Good. It’ll go much better next time. After all, practice makes perfect.”

*

The investigation into the death of Sam Keating is all anyone can talk about; where he was found, who he was sleeping with, how many pieces he was in. Annalise plays the grieving wife better than anyone expects; it irks the shit out of Michaela. The woman had commandeered their murder, and now here she was stealing their spotlight, too.

“I hate her,” Michaela grumbles under her breath, crossing her arms over her chest. Beside her, Laurel leans against the wall, idly inspecting her nails. They stand off to the side of the courthouse hallway, barely twenty feet away feet from where Annalise is having a hushed conversation with Bonnie and Frank. God knows about what; the woman has more secrets than the rest of her staff combined.

“S’not her fault. What did you think, people were gonna feel sorry for _you_ when _her_ husband died?”

“You’re not being helpful, Laurel. What have I said about saying things that don’t add to the conversation?” She doesn’t even have to look over to know Laurel is rolling her eyes, probably mimicking her. “Anyway, _she_ isn’t supposed to be the sympathetic one. We are! She looks guilty as shit, they basically had a jail cell ready with her name on it. We’re just the poor little law students that were dumb enough to think she was a good person. If we were all white and straight, they’d make a Lifetime movie about how we overcame this traumatizing event and went on to become Supreme Court Justices or whatever.” She shakes her head, throwing a disgusted glance in Annalise’s direction. “And she goes and pins it on the boyfriend. She knew everyone would eat that shit up. Angry Black cop kills the white husband of his lover. How fucking awful is that?”

“You’re getting louder.”

“Whatever,” she grouses, but she’s dropped her voice to a near whisper. “I don’t understand how you’re not pissed.”

Laurel gives a light shrug, always so unbothered. Michaela wants to strangle _her_ sometimes. “Getting pissed won’t do anything but make us sloppy. We can’t afford to be sloppy, not now.”

“So? What now?”

“So, Sam didn’t work out. Whatever, nobody’s gonna miss him. We try again. We need to look sympathetic, so we pick someone who’ll do that for us. We think harder this time.”

Michaela turns so she’s fully facing Laurel, her lips curling into a wicked smile. “I don’t need time to think. I’ve had my eyes on this one since the day I met the bitch.”

Laurel looks up from her nails finally, eyeing Michaela curiously. “I’m intrigued.”

Brown eyes darken as Michaela hoists her purse onto her shoulder and turns towards the exit. “I wanna do it the same as the first time.”

Laurel pouts, pushing herself off of the wall to follow. “No fair. You had the last one.”

*

Even though Michaela calls dibs, Laurel stands in the corner looking all dejected the whole time they’re in the basement, and it’s kind of ruining the whole vibe, so Michaela finally relents with a roll of her eyes, stepping away from a half conscious Rebecca and gesturing to the gasping girl with a sweep of her arm.

“If you’re gonna be all pouty about it, fine.”

Laurel doesn’t even bother hiding her joy, taking the time to roll down the sleeves of her sweater because Rebecca’s black nails are jagged and Michaela’s already got scratches along her arms. Laurel had told her to stop wearing sleeveless dresses to murder scenes, but Michaela insists that dressing for success is half the battle.

Convincing the rest of the group to kidnap Rebecca is a lot easier than they’d expected, which isn’t surprising. Everyone in that house, besides Waitlist, has hated her blasé attitude and fake goth bullshit since Annalise took on her useless case. Michaela figures she’s probably not even the only one to have fantasized about killing Rebecca. But she’s definitely the only one who once got off to the idea, just as a test, to see if she’s as broken inside as she suspects (she cums, albeit reluctantly, and she’s happy to say that murder is only a means to an end for her, even if it _is_ a little fun, but definitely not a kink or anything.)

“Oh, shit.”

Michaela’s head snaps up when she hears Laurel curse. Rebecca is halfway up the staircase, nails digging into the wood as Laurel pulls on her ankles.

“What the _fuck_?” Michaela rushes to her side, grabbing one ankle in both hands as Laurel does the same to the other, both pulling until they hear two simultaneous _pops_. Rebecca wails through the rag taped into her mouth, eyes wide, as Laurel and Michaela drop her legs, letting them fall onto the steps. Her ankles flop at odd angles, feet still, body sagging onto the stairs in defeat.

Laurel scratches the back of her neck. “I was just trying to pull her back down, but that works too.”

Michaela blinks down at Rebecca, who’s slid back down to the cold basement floor, lying on her side and staring up at them with tears in her eyes. She moans in pain, looking defeated. “You were right about not untying her. It’s just not the same when they don’t fight back.”

Laurel puts a supportive hand on her shoulder. “I know.”

They both look down at Rebecca. Her face is stained with tears and mascara and that stupid eyeliner she always wears. Michaela had – out of the kindness of her own heart – given her makeup advice, once, but Rebecca had scoffed and lined them even thicker the next day. She can’t help but smile now, watching Rebecca soundlessly sob on the concrete floor of Annalise’s basement and comparing that to the image of Rebecca giving a fake confession to the police, pretending to be so fierce when all it took was a couple of bones pulled out of the sockets to render her a weeping mess.

Michaela puts her own hand over the one Laurel has on her shoulder. “You should finish it. They’ll be back soon.”

Laurel nods resolutely. She kneels, bringing her face close to Rebecca’s. “Don’t worry. It’ll be over soon.”

It takes another fifteen minutes and a trip to the kitchen to find a plastic bag, because Rebecca’s neck must be extra strong or something. Laurel squeezes and squeezes but she doesn’t die as easily as Lila had.

*

Lila isn’t either of their first, but she is the first they do together; in that way, she’ll always hold a special place in their hearts.

It’s the first moment they feel like a real team, Michaela with her hands around the redhead’s throat while Laurel pins her arms to the roof. When they stand, sporting matching bruises from the gravel on their knees, they lift her together and drop her into the water tower. It’s symbolic, Laurel explains. Baptismal, or something. Michaela just wants to make sure the smell of her perfume doesn’t linger on Lilah’s clothes.

They meet at orientation; the Latina heiress trying to pass as middle class and the poor Black girl trying to pass as well off. They see through each other immediately. Laurel doesn’t know what it is about Michaela, who is frustratingly snobby and the poster girl for everything she’s tried to leave behind, but she sees herself in her, something that makes her want to share everything. She thinks it’s when they’re out for coffee and a bike messenger gets run down by an SUV outside the window and Michaela can barely hide how intrigued she is when the paramedics wheel the guy away with half of his intestines hanging out; or maybe it’s when they get drunk and have a slasher movie marathon and Michaela keeps commenting on how unrealistic the kill scenes are.

“No way someone dies that slowly from having their throat slashed,” she laments with a roll of her eyes. She rolls her eyes a lot, and Laurel starts to pick up on the habit quickly. “You’d choke on your own blood before you bled out.”

“You act like you’re a doctor,” Laurel observes through a mouthful of popcorn. It always pisses Michaela off, how ‘classless’ she can be, so she finds herself doing little things like that to annoy her even more, because Michaela is kind of adorable when she’s pissed.

“Chew your food,” Michaela automatically says, and Laurel shoves another handful of popcorn into her mouth, ignoring her. “I was pre-med in undergrad, actually.”

Laurel swallows, surprised, and coughs as she accidentally inhales a kernel. She takes a swig of beer to wash it down. “Oh. Wow. I didn’t know that.”

“Obviously.”

“If you were gonna kill someone, how would you do it?” The question is out of Laurel’s mouth before she can stop it, but she doesn’t regret asking. Michaela is the most type-A, anal retentive, overly organized person she’s ever met. If anyone can get away with a murder, it’s her.

So it doesn’t surprise Laurel when Michaela responds, with no hesitation, “Strangulation. Then leave the body submerged in water, or burn it to destroy any evidence. Like hair, or whatever.” She pulls her fingers through her own hair as she says it.

“That’s…violent. Isn’t strangling someone to death, like, super personal? You’d have to be pretty pissed off to kill someone that way.”

“People make me mad sometimes." Michaela gives a small shrug, as if none of this bothers her. “What about you? How would you do it?”

Laurel actually pretends to consider it for a moment. “I’d play the long game. Make them look crazy. Convince them they actually _are_ crazy. Maybe so crazy they lose it and off themselves. Then, when it actually happens, it doesn’t even matter how. Everyone will just think ‘oh, that crazy person died.’”

Michaela turns to looks at her curiously, head cocked, and she actually looks a little impressed, like she’s admiring her. “ _You_ might be crazy.”

Laurel grins, her eyes twinkling. “Yeah, so I’ve been told.”

*

“I think Frank knows.”

Michaela’s fingers don’t stop flying across the keyboard of her laptop when Laurel speaks. She’s got a Con Law paper due at midnight – three hours from now – that she’s only just now starting because Annalise seems to think the work they do for her precedes their responsibilities as law students. Because of course she does.

Laurel opens her mouth to repeat herself, louder, but Michaela responds before she has a chance.

“What makes you think that?”

“Just something he said.”

“He said he knows we killed Rebecca?”

“No, but obviously they suspect one of us did it. It’s not like anyone else had access to the house, or knew she was in the basement. Annalise suspects it too.”

“We can always do him next.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Finally, Michaela tears her eyes away from the computer screen, closing the laptop and setting it aside. She has her dorky reading glasses perched on her nose, which always make Laurel want to laugh at her, but she manages to suppress that now because Michaela looks like she’s just been force fed lemons as she silently stares Laurel down.

“Because you’re fucking him?” Michaela finally questions, voice deceptively calm.

“No. Because what good would it do? We didn’t start this to get rid of everyone we don’t like; we had a plan. And killing Frank isn’t going to do shit to help that plan. If anything, it’ll just make Annalise more suspicious.”

Michaela eyes don’t waver as she continues to watch Laurel fidget, woefully unconvinced. “Do you love him?”

“ _No_.”

“Then what? Why are you protecting him?”

“I’m not! I’m protecting _us_. If we start killing people out of anger or jealousy, we’ll get sloppy.”

When Michaela speaks, her voice is icy and laced with a venom Laurel has never heard before. “I’m not jealous of him.”

Laurel, on the other hand, only sounds exasperated. “I didn’t say you were.”

“You were only supposed to fuck him to get information on Annalise and Sam. Why are you even still talking to him?”

Laurel can’t stop her cheeks from flushing, and Michaela just scoffs and rises from the couch, walking away.

“Michaela, wait-”

She doesn’t stop, disappearing through the arch into Laurel’s kitchen. It’s quiet for a long time before she returns, her face serene but her eyes wild.

“I’m fine,” she lies, and she doesn’t even try to pretend she’s not. “If you wanna keep fucking him, fine. But you better not let him get in the way of this, Laurel. I- I have plans for my life, I don’t have a trust fund like you,” she spits the words out. “If I have to finish this without you, I will.” The steely stare she levels at Laurel makes it very clear what she means; she’ll kill her if she has to, if it means finishing what they started.

Laurel’s not surprised, but it still hurts a little.

*

About two weeks after they meet, Laurel only knows a few things about Michaela:

(1) She has a degree in biology, and she’d planned to go to medical school.

(2) She’s engaged to some guy she barely talks about, and definitely doesn’t actually love.

(3) She’s adopted, born and raised in the Deep South. She’s embarrassed about both.

It’s not much, but it’s enough for her to give to her dad’s P.I. and demand the full package. He returns to her within the week, a thick manila folder tucked under his arm. Laurel reads it like a novel. The next time she sees Michaela, she knows a few more things:

(1) She’s always loved horror films, the bloodier the better, and medical documentaries. Anything involving true crime, which seems like a fitting interest for someone who was pre-med and currently pursuing a law degree. She used to run a blog where she rated kill scenes in slasher films. It’s anonymous but the P.I. traces it to her IP address.

(2) She doesn’t possess the ability to love. Her grade school file mentions that she’s “remarkably intelligent” but “disturbingly apathetic towards others.” There are dozens of behavioral write-ups and a few unofficial notes regarding incidents everyone is sure Michaela had been involved in, but no one could prove: kids with hairline fractures, class pets impaled on pencils, a teacher who almost drank a handful of thumbtacks instead of the coffee she’d thought was in her mug.

(3) At the age of four, she watched her mother die from a gunshot wound to the face. Her father was holding the gun. He ran. Social services found Michaela, barefoot in her pajamas and sprayed with blood, on a swing set in the backyard. She was taken in by a couple two towns over who called social services two months later and demand they come and take Michaela back.

The medical files read so familiarly that Laurel has to keep flipping through the pages to make sure these files are actually Michaela’s. Besides her family history and lack of money, Michaela’s childhood reads just like Laurel’s own. She’s so certain, the next time they hang out, she doesn’t even skirt around the topic.

“I killed my mom.”

They’re on the roof of a sorority house – apparently Michaela pledged in undergrad, which shouldn’t surprise Laurel, and has been staying in the house until her apartment is ready for the upcoming school year – drinking rum out of a flask and watching the sun set through the trees. They’re a little over two weeks out from the start of school.

Michaela barely reacts to the confession, and Laurel sees why her teachers were so disturbed by her. When she’s not being an absolute pain in the ass, or freaking out over things not going her way, Michaela’s demeanor is cold, nearly catatonic. She just finishes her long, measured sip and lowers the flask into her lap, tongue sneaking out to lick the taste off her lips.

“Why would you tell me that?”

Laurel shrugs.

Michaela leans back, propping herself on her elbows on the ratty blanket they’re sitting on. “You shouldn’t tell people that,” Michaela says.

Laurel shrugs again. “You’re not people.”

Michaela doesn’t respond to that at first, just lifts the flask to her lips and takes a hearty sip before passing it to Laurel. A full minute passes.

“How old were you?”

“Thirteen.”

A vicious smiles blooms on Michaela’s red lips, and Laurel shivers despite the balmy August evening. “Late bloomer. I was eleven.” She lowers herself down onto the blanket, lying on her side, her head propped on one hand. She looks like she’s gossiping at a sleepover. “Tell me how you did it.”

*

Rebecca’s disappearance barely makes the local news. There are some posters thrown up around campus, but it’s nothing like the way every surface had been wallpapered with Lila’s face. Everyone just kind of assumes she’s off getting high somewhere, or run off to a new town where she won’t be recognized now that the whole Lilah mess is over and done with. Sam Keating killed her to cover up the mess his dick made, then got killed himself. The trail goes cold there, after Annalise’s conniving.

It all makes for an uneventful winter.

Until they start the Hapstall case.

Fucking Caleb takes Michaela’s mind off things. At first it’s purely physical; he’s cute – duh – and she’s been horny ever since she broke things off with Aidan, because he’d been asking way too many questions and getting on her about not being affectionate enough, and it was kind of getting on her nerves. Caleb doesn’t care about things like that, though, or really anything, Michaela notices. Kind of like her.

She finds his gun when she’s digging around in his bedside table drawer while he’s peeing one night, and he looks irritated when he walks back in the room to find her standing in the middle of the bed, still naked, posing with it in the mirror above the dresser. His irritation fades when he sees her smile, at which point he asks her if she’d like to see what it can do.

He doesn’t even unload it before he slides it inside of her, and she’s never cum so hard in her life, her walls clenching around the cold metal. Then he holds it in front of her mouth and she blows the gun harder than she had him. Later, he shows her that the safety had been on the whole time and she kind of wishes he hadn’t bothered.

Their spring is eventful as hell.

By the time they get around to killing Sinclair, Michaela is practically bursting at the seams. She tells Laurel, firmly to make it clear she’s not negotiating this time, that this one is hers. She looks so ravenous, Laurel doesn’t even argue.

“Remind me again why we have to do this,” Laurel whispers, crouched behind a dark blue hatchback in the parking garage of the courthouse. “Sinclair wants to send Annalise to jail. She’s working overtime to find proof Annalise is guilty. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

Michaela, crouched two cars down, adjusts the laces on her shoes for the hundredth time. “She’s digging too much, being too nosy. Obviously we want people to _think_ Annalise is an evil old hag, but Sinclair isn’t going to find that, is she? She’s gonna dig and dig until she finds something that points to one of _us_. I mean, she’s meeting with Asher, and he’s got the intelligence of a newborn rodent. What happens when he mentions he saw Connor’s car at the house the night Sam went missing?”

Laurel nods, sliding black gloves onto her hands. “No, that makes sense. But why don’t we just kill Asher?”

Michaela waves her away. “Later,” she whispers, and Laurel doesn’t know if that means they’ll talk about it later or kill him later. “Here she comes”

They both go completely still.

The clicking sound of heels on concrete announce the ADA’s arrival. She approaches the car in between them, digs in her purse for her keys. It takes forever, and Michaela’s knees are starting to pop. She almost groans and fucks the whole things up, but Sinclair finally unlocks the doors and slips into the driver’s seat, cranking the engine.

Laurel kicks the bumper of the car in front of her. The alarm blares. It distracts Sinclair just long enough for Michaela to slip into the backseat and jam a plastic bag over her head. Laurel army crawls to the passenger side and lays herself across the middle console, pinning Sinclair’s arms in place as her legs kick out under the steering wheel. They stay that way long after she goes still.

“That should do it.” Michaela pulls the bag away, balling it up and stuffing it into her pocket. She pops a latch in the rear window and pulls the back seat down, revealing an opening to the trunk. “Push her over the seat.”

Sinclair is more solid than she looks; heavier than Lila’s petite frame, and she’d been enough of a hassle to lift into the tank. They have her body halfway into the backseat when Sinclair takes a deep, gasping breath, one flailing arm catching Michaela in the face, and jumps out of the car, running as fast as her legs will carry her.

It’s not very fast at all, considering she's still trying to catch her breath. She barely makes it three cars down before Laurel climbs into the driver’s seat and runs the prosecutor down. Then she backs over her, at Michaela’s behest, for good measure. It’s easier getting her into the trunk from the outside, anyway.

“So much for doing it inside the car,” Laurel grumbles, shutting the trunk on Sinclair’s limp arm. “Oops.”

“Please be careful.” Michaela uses her hips to nudge the arm into the trunk and stands aside to let Laurel close it properly. “I’ll drive this. You get back in your car and meet me at the Hapstalls.”

*

Annalise Keating’s house burns down on a Tuesday. She’s inside when it happens, along with Wes, whose real name, it turns out, is Christoff. Laurel and Michaela hadn’t planned on the two of them having some kind of past connection, but it makes the whole "teacher and student turned lovers who went on a murder spree to protect their secret relationship" thing way more believable. Apparently Annalise, after a miscarriage caused by a car accident, had tried to adopt Wes when he was twelve. And she’d also apparently gotten him accepted to Middleton, to have him closer. Then she’d fallen in love or lust or whatever with him, after finding out her husband had been cheating on her with one of _his_ students. (The first part is actually true; neither Laurel nor Michaela could have come up with something that perfect if they'd tried.)

The murder timeline begins somewhere around there, with Laurel and Michaela eagerly helping the investigators to fill in some of the gaps.

They have to write it all down to make sure they don't miss anything, but here's how it all ends: Sam kills Lila. Annalise has Wes kill Sam. They kill Rebecca together, because she’d found out about their relationship. Sinclair's digging from the DA's office had started to turn up clues so they offed her next. Frank, Michaela throws in to Laurel's surprise, had also been sleeping with Annalise, and it only makes sense that Wes had killed him out of jealousy. With Frank’s body getting cold in the basement, and the DA’s office closing in, Wes and Annalise turned all the burners on the gas stove on, invited the rest of the group over to work on some important case that just could not wait, held hands, and lit a match.

The whole story comes out piece by piece over a week. Michaela and Laurel do dozens of local news interviews, then CNN, Dateline, even an E! special. Lifetime calls them with a movie offer; the girls who survived the Middleton Murder Spree (that’s what everyone’s calling it, even though Michaela had suggested the Middleton Massacre, the obviously better choice) because they’d stepped onto the porch to have a private conversation.

Everyone thinks _they’re_ fucking now, too, which, okay, they’d hooked up a few times out of drunkenness and boredom but it’s not like that. Michaela’s not gay, but she’s not _not_ gay. She just lacks the ability to have romantic feelings towards anyone, regardless of gender. Besides, Laurel is a little pissed at her for a few days after she finds out Michaela had stabbed Frank in the basement two days before the fire, which they hadn’t agreed to at all; but Michaela had been tired of watching Laurel fawn over him and had started to worry that Laurel would do something at the last minute to save him. So, no, they’re not in love, though Michaela thinks whatever is between her and Laurel is the closest thing she’s felt to love in her entire life. And holding hands while they weep across from Diane Sawyer gets them an interview in some prominent LGBT magazine, so they go with it.

“It’s all so crazy. We both just feel so lucky to be alive,” Laurel is saying for the millionth time, her hands clasped around one of Michaela’s in her lap. They both sport the sad, resolute faces they’ve gotten down to a science.

Michaela nods solemnly. “Seriously, I mean, we got _so_ lucky. I keep saying God wanted us to make it out of that house alive, because how else can you explain it? How we walked off that porch with only some minor burns and a few broken ribs between us?”

“Exactly,” Laurel continues. “And we feel like God brought us out of that house alive because we have a purpose. We came to Middleton to be lawyers, to help people who are being victimized just like Annalise Keating was victimizing us.”

“This experience is going to make us much better lawyers because now we’ve, like, been through something that’s going to help us connect with our clients so much better.”

“And we’re so sad about what happened to our friends and classmates-”

“ _So_ sad.”

“-but we’re going to work so hard now to make sure they’re not forgotten, and that all of what we suffered through at Annalise Keating’s hands won’t be in vain.”

The interviewer nods, intent on their every word. “Amazing. You ladies have been through so much, and you’re not planning on slowing down. What’s next for these two survivors of the Middle Murder Spree?”

Michaela beams, sitting up a bit straighter. “Well, like we said, we’re still totally serious about becoming lawyers, but honestly neither of us is comfortable at Middleton anymore.”

“So many bad memories there,” Laurel adds.

“ _So_ many. We were planning on transferring and, it’s the craziest thing, so many schools heard about what happened to us and have offered us admission into their law programs. We’ve just been floored by the kindness everyone has been showing us in these dark times.” She pauses, face grim, to let that statement sit before her face splits into another blinding smile. So we’re proud to announce that this Fall, we’ll be starting at Columbia Law!”

“With full scholarships!”

“Yes, it’s just been amazing.” When Michaela speaks, her voice sounds choked, like she’s fighting back tears. She’d worked on that for hours.

Laurel pats Michaela’s hand in her lap.  “We’re _so_ excited. I mean, our first year of law school was so hectic, and we’re ready to just be regular law students for once. We were also offered many internships for the summer, all at prestigious firms around the country, and we’ve accepted positions at one of the top corporate law firms in the country, based out of L.A.”

“We’re just so blessed,” Michaela finishes, and a single tear effortless springs to her eye and slides down her cheek. “And to think, _all of this_ happened because someone went on a murder spree.”

**Author's Note:**

> i think i was going for funny because the movie is v satirical but now i'm wondering if i just have a fucked up sense of humor?


End file.
